What's On at the Library

Toronto Public Library customers have a chance to share their poetry by contributing to an open book project at twenty branches across the city.  Each of these branches is displaying a book titled Your Poem Goes Here and the public is invited to fill the book’s pages with poetry.

Your Poem Goes Here is a project by the library and George Elliott Clarke, Poet Laureate of Toronto, who hopes to inspire Torontonians to put their thoughts and creative expression onto paper.

Library staff read submitted poetry and post their favourite poems here every week in April to celebrate National Poetry Month.

 

1.

My Life in 6 Words

I’ve spent a lifetime sifting pebbles.

– K.Ogaki

 

2.

Library

so quiet like a house at night,

creepin spirits among you

love to read, ghosts like to

read too.

–  Anushkavy

 

3.

My Fur Hat

My fur hat

is just like that…..

a lid

in frigid weather.MMM.warm!

–  Gloria

 

4.

If I can’t

visit a temple

   on a cold

     windy day

 making someone

          smile

      is my favorite

         prayer!!

 – Kamal Dhillon

 

5.

   winter’s fingers won’t let go

   walking fast to the library

ah, dressed in the warmth of books.

–  N. Matte  

the harsh winter

 

6.

Life is like a maze

You try to find your way out

and when you do

there is something amazing waiting for you.

 –  Hafsa Abdi

 

7.

A dove flies north

it plans to move forth

A dove flies south

to end a great drought

A dove flies east

to fight a big beast

A dove flies west

and finishes its quest.

–  Chenling Shi

 

8.

Plasticine Model

With eyes that stare on blankly

I will carve till it bleeds

Belly aches

The pale stench.

–  aiha

 

9.

Ladybug

This poem makes no sense

Many birds migrate each year

     Refrigerator.

 – anonymous

 

10.

I wish I understood the pentameter

or penta diameter

or whatever it’s called.

This garble of words and syncopation

I try and try

But it’s lost on me, yet again.

I wish I understood poetry.

– Maxine Wong

 

12.

Olympia

Isn’t it nice? We slide and slice,

We circle thrice, on golden ice,

And hold the hand of paradise.

–  Lorenza

 

13.

Peter peter pizza eater

how I wish that you were neater,

half the pizzas on your shirt

clean the mess or no dessert

–  Angie age 10

 

14.

Compassion

It doesn’t matter.

(Yes, it does.)

Who cares?

(I do.)

It’s not important

(Yes, it is.)

Forget about it!

(I can’t)

What’s wrong with you?

(It doesn’t matter.)

 – Kathie Ogaki

 

15.

My sink is so pink

You can’t take a drink

Or even think.

– M. Chen

 

16.

Shall I paddle about the pacific,

Till I find where the East meets West?

Shall I climb up the towering red wood,

And rest in the gold gryphon’s nest?

Shall I dig with a spoon in the desert

Till I strike at the core of the earth?

But where shall I find what I’ve hunted

Since the moment that followed my birth?

 

– Swan White

 

17.

The Friend                                                   

Each and of the day

In glorious colors it splendidly declares

That the evening has come

With the setting of the sun

Its daily work has been done

And now beneath the seas

It see to go to sleep

Only to arise in a far-away place

On my neighbor’s door step

 For the clouds are never above the sun

So let your light shine through.

– Simeon T. Vincent

 

18.

Karma screams too loud

We rush outside with no coat

A lion and bird await.

 

19.

Hi I am Bill

Bill likes Hills

Hills are tall

Bill is not

—Billy

 

20.

You get to wash your hair in the lake

She promised

See how the shampoo floats

My body awakened in the cool black water

I stood wrapped inside his shirt

And he made promises

See how my body floats, like

That same girl in the waves

—anonymous

 

21.

I’m back. the still point.

The same trees, my longer hair

At the still point

Dancing heart going on……

—JH.Li